Brussels, 02/05/2011 (Agence Europe) - More than 3,000 refugees, mostly from countries in Africa, have arrived on the Italian coast, particularly the island of Lampedusa, from Libya over the past three days, according to reports by AFP. Good weather and calm seas have seen ships and boats carrying hundreds of immigrants arrive on Lampedusa since Friday 29 April.
On Monday 2 May, Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said he feared that floods of immigrants would set sail from Libya and that if things carried on as they are, then his forecasts of 50,000 people landing in Italy would unfortunately prove to be accurate. Maroni said that it was not possible to send them back because of the war in Libya and EU rules whereby they have to stay in the country in which they arrived. Italy is arranging to divide the immigrants up and send them to the various regions of Italy.
Italy's Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said he feared numbers would soon reach 60,000. He pointed out that most of the latest arrivals had been forced to leave Libya because of the coalition's bombings of Libya, along with Colonel Gaddafi's threat to stop preventing illegal immigrants from setting sail for Europe. AFP reports that the Colonel said on Saturday 30 April that it was now a matter of open warfare with Italy, accusing his former friend Silvio Berlusconi of betrayal when he decided that Italy would join NATO's air strikes on Libya. (S.P./transl.fl)